Shalom
by Kichigai Hi
Summary: It had been their first meeting - just like this. Maybe they'd come full circle. Tiva.


Oh noes! Another angsty Tiva fic! I'm afraid I can't help it, what with the past few episodes and the finale coming up tonight... I can barely contain myself. :) Actually, this was started back in January but I lost my inspiration. Now, I think this is the best time to end it.

Spoilers: Early season 3, late season 5... everything else is vague.

* * *

It was there the first time he'd laid eyes on her cascading locks and beckoning eyes of the richest chestnut. It was a natural curiosity, a desire to saunter over and see just what was buried within those alluring graves of her pupils. That was hardly new, of course, it was just a bit more deep, more personal than he'd expected it to be... especially when she gave as good as she got. It didn't take long for that feeling to intensify - that sentiment of foreboding whose nature was disguised from him at first. That _it_ that he didn't want to know despite the fact that she would bring it up regardless, in complete ignorance of the truth that he knew what it was anyway. She finally spoke the words he'd feared, confirming the suspicions he hadn't really wanted to consider. And when he answered back with an equal amount of surety, he knew without a doubt the emotion that filled his words - the emotion he otherwise covered with the mask of his usual shallow appreciation of appearance, if he felt it at all. He leaned forward, matched by her own slow approach.

"I'd wish you luck, but I want the bastard dead too."

And the depths froze over with an icy sheen to mirror his, desperately trying to cool the boiling resentment he was fully aware of now. She didn't pull back fast enough to escape the bitterness, to miss the fire that had torn its way out of green stained glass and into her skin.

It hadn't been a wrong turn; her mission had been wrong to begin with... so when she ended up becoming a part of his daily life not so long after... he quelled that strange feeling once more. He only began to wonder at it down the road when he felt it arise again, bubbling up with those alcohol-laced words concerning Paris and certain things one couldn't avoid. And even though their relationship had, in some respects, bettered between them since then - and in others gone on a roller coaster ride - he couldn't help but start to feel a familiar hesitance gnawing at his gut. Suddenly, the roles were reversed and he discovered exactly how she'd felt four years ago... three... one. Perhaps he'd let himself get too close to the honey. He could feel the bees _it _had sent to chase him as he ran toward her, only after she'd stopped her own approach toward him. After she'd stopped trying to make things work.

One more time, they would play their game as he dared to near the person he'd never had the courage to hang on to before. Once again, the scent of mortality and betrayal was keen in his heart, but this time, it was far more dangerous, pushing him along _it_, the line he now knew divided hate and... something else.

Yes, the ice had melted over the years but it only took a spark for the flame to burn stronger than ever. Last time, it had been her pleas that had taken center stage... how had he become the beseeching voice practically asking her to crush it just as he had hers so many times before? He was used to winning. Used to walking away victorious if not unscathed... but he was the one trying to convince her of his innocence and the necessity of proving what he'd done was what had to happen. Everything else would fade away as gorgeous brown held the trigger over him, he waiting for the shot. He could do but stare when she lowered her pink lips to his ear, bitterly mocking the time they'd spent building themselves up only to tear each other down.

"I'd wish you luck, but..."

It wasn't just his eyes that froze over this time. Cold reality reminded him that those words had once made her walk away. Who could say if this time around, it might cause her to never come back? This had to have been a wrong turn somewhere, something that in another life, might have been evitable. Because for once, she was the one refusing him and showing him that in the end, she would come out on top. Because old habits died hard. Because this time, just like the last, she had stood up for more than an assassin; she had stood up for a murderer.

And so, she turned away, straight ponytail swaying with each heartbreaking step, leaving him broken with the leaden surety that hate had certainly reigned over their first encounter, and the breathless fear that it had brutally smothered their last.


End file.
